Durga puja ends on a joyous, peaceful note in State

SHILLONG/ TURA: Durga puja celebrations ended on a peaceful note in Meghalaya with devotees bidding adieu to the Goddess with great fervour and bonhomie. The colourfully illuminated and tastefully decorated puja pandals in the city and elsewhere in the State drew thousands of devotees on all three days of the festivities. Security remained on a high in the entire State. On Tuesday, 58 idols of Goddess Durga and other deities were immersed at the Wahumkhrah at Polo, including 53 idols from community pandals across the city. Five more idols were immersed in other places in the city. The Central Puja Committee (CPC) extended its gratitude to the government departments, the district administrations, media and the large number of volunteers for ensuring successful and peaceful Puja celebrations. In Tura the gods opened up the skies to bestow their blessings with showers during the Durga Puja celebrations but the downpour failed to deter the spirits of the devotees during the biggest Hindu festival in Garo Hills. Tura was in the midst of festivity as devotees of Goddess Durga bid their farewell on Vijaya Dashami by immersing her idols at the Babupara ghat, witnessed by several thousand people all along the route the procession took on Tuesday afternoon. The immersion procession which comprised of 24 colorfully decorated trucks carrying the idols of Goddess Durga moved from the Police Parade Ground at approximately 2 pm passing through the main through fare of the town as devotees lined along the route threw flowers seeking blessings of Goddess Durga. The oldest puja mandap in Garo Hills, the 131-year-old Nepali puja mandap, led the procession to the immersion ghat. The immersion went on till around seven in the evening. This year’s theme for the puja at Tura was “clean Tura, green Tura”. In sync with the theme, the mandaps made efforts to propagate the message of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.